This week we have published a real estate activity table for the first half of 2014, which, when compared to the same six month periods from 2005 to 2013, reveals various things. To start with, the number of deeds, and especially the number of mortgages, recorded at Strafford County Registry from January to June, has shrunk this year, compared to 2013, putting unwelcome dips in what had been steadily climbing graphs.

People in the real estate business, as well as County Register Dennis Vachon, attribute this decline in property sales to the long, harsh winter which disrupted activity, and if they are correct, the pent up demand it caused should be reflected in stronger home sales in the second half of this year.

Vachon, as mentioned our Page 1 story, was surprised at how strongly the second quarter closed and the third quarter of the year has opened — something that will be reflected in our table at the end of September, if the trend continues and was not a two-day flash in the pan.

Furthermore, Rochester Realtor Bob Watson and his colleagues, who are out showing homes on a daily basis, have detected a positive change in the market, and predict that this summer’s real-estate activity will get those graphs back on track.

Watson mentioned another important point, too. After a five- or six-year dead spell, new home construction is beginning to take place again, in response to declining inventories and rising house prices.

The Rochester Times table also shows that the number of foreclosures in the first half of 2014 was down quite dramatically, to a level below that of 2008, when trouble had first galloped over the horizon. Rochester, Farmington and Milton, of course, are still suffering disproportionately compared to the rest of the county — since 2005, over half of the county’s 2,600 foreclosures have occurred in just those three communities.

In Foster’s Daily Democrat reporter Morgan Palmer’s story, which we have carried this week, she quotes New Hampshire Housing Executive Director Dean Christon as saying that the foreclosure activity has lead to greater numbers of former homeowners entering the rental market, and driving up the cost of apartment rents to unaffordable levels in many cases.

With the sustained high price of gas (in a country that is now the world’s leading producer, thanks to advances in shale extraction technology) life remains a struggle for many families. It is little wonder the Rochester tax cap, enshrined in the city’s charter, remains popular.

Letter-writer David Scott, below, notes that two-thirds of Strafford County residents — in the cities of Rochester, Dover and Somersworth — now have a strong measure of protection from property tax hikes greater than the consumer price index. Residents in towns like Farmington and Milton, do not however, and perhaps it is time that they should, albeit that it may take some legislation in Concord to enable it.

Last week, in our Rochester Tax Cap story, one of the architects of that legislation, Cliff Newton, made an interesting point — that he would like to see property tax rises linked to the income per capita of a community, in order to better peg hikes to an affordable level. Several decades ago, Professor Augenblick, in calculating his formula for state support for poor school districts, took income per capita into account. Maybe it’s time that something as basic as income per capita should get a little more attention again.